Bush Relaxes Clinton Rule On Central Air-Conditioners

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: April 14, 2001

WASHINGTON, April 13—
The Bush administration said today that it would block a rule published in the last days of the Clinton administration requiring new central air-conditioners to be 30 percent more efficient than the current minimum and instead require that they be 20 percent more efficient.

In a statement that contrasted with President Bush's recent assertions that the nation faces an energy crisis, Spencer Abraham, the energy secretary, said energy conservation goals needed to be balanced against the need to minimize ''future price increases on consumers, particularly low-income consumers.''

The retail price difference between models meeting those standards is about $123, according to the Energy Department, for an appliance that generally costs $2,000 to $4,000. The extra cost is covered by the savings in energy over about 15 months of its 18-year average life, according to the department.

The industry's trade association had argued that 30 percent would be ''a crushing burden'' for some consumers, especially those who live in centrally air-conditioned mobile homes, because the more efficient machines are larger and would not fit. That problem would discourage people from moving to more efficient models, said Edward Dooley of the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute.

The idea that the standard should be weakened to protect the poor was attacked by supporters of the old standard, including Dan W. Reicher, an assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration who helped write it.

''There are about 100-plus million households in the U.S., with 15 million classified as low-income, but of those, only 1.6 million have central air-conditioners,'' Mr. Reicher said. ''We're going to lose, over time, a major improvement in the efficiency of the air-conditioning fleet, to save $122 per household in less than 2 percent of the people's homes.''

David Nemtzow, director of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit group, said, ''Guess what, poor people don't buy central air-conditioners, they tend to live in rentals.'' If the rented house or apartment is air-conditioned, the air-conditioner is owned by the landlord, he said, and if it is more efficient, then the tenant's bill is lower.

A better group to worry about, Mr. Nemtzow said, was old people whose health would be threatened by summer blackouts, which are made more likely by too much electric demand and too few generating stations.

According to the Energy Department, the 20 percent improvement it now favors would eliminate the need for 27 power plants of 400 megawatts each, nationwide, by 2030. Mr. Abraham in his statement said that the result would be to ''help dramatically reduce electricity demand during peak periods.''

The 30 percent improvement would avoid the need for 39 such plants, according to the department.

State governments in New York, California and Texas, worried about meeting summer electricity demands, had supported the 30 percent standard. Those states could now ask the Energy Department for permission to enforce the 30 percent standard within their own borders.

The economic difference between the two rules, taking into account higher purchase price but lower operating costs, is that a 20 percent increase would save about $2 billion over the next 30 years, compared with about $1 billion for the 30 percent standard.

But energy experts inside the department and outside acknowledged that all the estimates may be significantly off. If the price of electricity in 2010 is different from projections by only a few percent, the balance of costs and benefits to consumers may be far different.

The industry was also divided concerning the issue; Goodman Manufacturing, which owns Amana and is the second-largest producer of central air-conditioners, favored the stricter standard.

Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, said in a statement that the decision was ''breathtaking in its cynicism.''

''Since taking office, the president has used an 'energy crisis' as justification to weaken environmental laws,'' he said.

Environmental groups rushed to criticize the decision, which they said would result in extra pollution from power plants. Some suggested that it was illegal, because the 1987 law that calls for standards forbids weakening them.

Energy Department officials said, however, that even though the rule had been published in the Federal Register, they had acted before it was scheduled to take effect -- first with a 60-day delay on all rules, announced by Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, and now with a specific decision on the standard.

Under the Clinton rule, the ''compliance date'' -- when the rule would affect sales -- was 2006, to give manufacturers time to retool.

Technically, what the department did today was state its intention to propose a new standard. The Clinton standard was in the works for six years; it was not immediately clear how long a new one would take.